


Vesuvius

by somegunemojis



Series: Tender Mercies [9]
Category: Original Content
Genre: F/M, Proposals, the height of romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:14:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26090212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somegunemojis/pseuds/somegunemojis
Summary: So what, if he isn't the most romantic man?
Relationships: Bettino Tahan/Alia DiMarco
Series: Tender Mercies [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893175





	Vesuvius

April, 2007 -- Napoli, Italia.

April in Naples is some mixture between biblical, torrential downpours and unfathomably hot afternoons, and today is no different. Humidity sticks to the insides of his ribs, the nape of his neck, and right under his eyes, where he doesn’t quite manage to sweat. It’s pouring outside now, but the lack of wind that comes with it means they can leave their windows open, and if he holds very still he imagines he can feel the mist from the impact of the drops on the windowsill settling along the hard lines of his bare back. It makes the skin of his shoulders and arms prickle, but he’s far too lazy to move now, gorging himself on skin-to-skin contact and listening to Alia’s heart pound away where his ear is pressed just under her left breast. 

The arm slung across her waist wanders around the expanse of skin he’s explored a million times over, mapping constellations on freckles and moles that are so familiar to him he could point them out with his eyes closed, so familiar to him that he could draw them from memory alone. She’s dozing, one arm wrapped around his shoulders and trailing light fingers over the lean muscle in his arm, the other sprawled against the sheets. He can tell whenever he manages to tickle her, because her fingers twitch minutely, and her chest jumps as her breath hitches. 

Bettino sits up on his elbow, and trails his hand up her ribcage, over her collarbone, and then presses it to her cheek. Her eyes open into narrow slits, the blue seemingly lit from within. They watch each other for a moment, and Bettino’s heart beats wildly, wildly out of control. He’s dizzy, and his cheeks and nose tingle with the blood rushing to them, unable to keep the smile from his face at the thought blooming in his head, and how warm her fingers feel pressed to the knob at the top of his spine. 

“Let’s get married,” he says, his heart in his throat. 

Her brows furrow, and she reaches across with her other hand to brush her fingers through his hair, smiling faintly when he leans into it with a soft sigh. “Bettino Tahan, you are not a very romantic man.” 

Not even bothering with the fake outrage, he thinks about climbing to the top of Vesuvius with her earlier in the week, a plain silver ring burning a fucking hole in his pocket. He thinks about how much his palms had been sweating unrelated to the vigorous exercise, and he thinks about how his heart hadn’t left his throat the whole time. He thinks about every single time she’d pointed out a rock formation with amazement, or how her golden hair would bob wildly in its ponytail when she leaped from raised stone to raised stone, holding onto his raised hand for balance. He thinks about every time she would irritate herself talking about politics, and how hard and breathlessly she’d laughed when they made it up to the top and it had the skies had opened up on them, pouring down rain, and the way she’d just pulled him to the dirt and they’d sat there and watched the clouds roll in over the city far below. Here, now, he simply leans forward and kisses her chin, a loud, smacking thing that makes her laugh. “And you are not a very romantic woman,” is his final response, tender and quiet in the scant space between them. “So what do you think?”

Alia sobers, and she trails her fingers from his hair down to his brow, sliding her thumb over the bone and then further down his cheek, pink with the faintest sunburn and the force of his joy. Her tongue is as sharp as ever when she murmurs back, “I’ll marry you when your tour is over. If you think I’m going to be some wailing war widow--” She cuts herself off, then, almost choked up. But she can’t keep the smile off her face, even as her eyes start to water. 

He’s absolutely giddy at the agreement, and he leans forward to place a gentle kiss on her lips, this time. And then another, on her cheek, and another at the corner of her eye, a ritual repeated so many times by now that there's no thought put into it. There’s no wobble in his voice, just an aching warmth and tenderness he thought he’d forgotten. “I know you would never wail over me, my love.” She’s far too proud, and if he died in a distant land he knows for damn sure she would march over there and drag him out of Death’s grip herself. It’s just another thing that he loves about her. “You’ll marry me when my tour is over.” She laughs, and she pulls him into another kiss. And another. He can’t stop kissing her, and he doesn’t want to.


End file.
